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Venice preps Golden Age retrospective

33 Italian films, productions will screen at fall event

GENEVA, Switzerland -- The Venice Film Festival will include a special retrospective of 33 films and productions from the so-called Golden Age of Italian cinema, organizers said Thursday.

The program, called "These Phantoms: Italian Cinema Rediscovered (1946-1975)," will feature a series of rediscovered and restored productions. The films were restored by the Venice festival with the National Film Archives and the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Although few of the titles of the films, collections and segments will ring a bell with casual film buffs, the lineup was directed by many of the most iconic names in Italian film history, including Pier Paolo Passolini, Vittorio De Sica, Lina Wertmueller, Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini.

The titles, according to organizers, "have remained simply titles in filmographies or dusted down for late-night viewing for some program, but in general overlooked by even the most attentive of the recent general histories of cinema reviewing Italian film."

The productions will screen throughout the 65th edition of the Venice festival, which is set for Aug. 27-Sept. 6.